Res Sci Educ (2020) 50:845–862
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-018-9714-y
Board Game in Physics Classes—a Proposal for a New
Method of Student Assessment
Daniel Dziob 1,2
Published online: 27 March 2018
# The Author(s) 2018
Abstract The aim of this study was to examine the impact of assessing students’ achievements in a physics course in the form of a group board game. Research was conducted in two
groups of 131 high school students in Poland. In each school, the research sample was divided
into experimental and control groups. Each group was taught by the same teacher and
participated in the same courses and tests before the game. Just after finishing the course on
waves and vibrations (school 1) and optics (school 2), experimental groups took part in a
group board game to assess their knowledge. One week after the game, the experimental and
control groups (not involved in the game) took part in the post-tests. Students from the
experimental groups performed better in the game than in the tests given before the game.
As well their results in the post-tests were significantly higher statistically than students from
the control groups. Simultaneously, student’s opinions in the experimental groups about the
board game as an assessment method were collected in an open-descriptive form and in a short
questionnaire, and analyzed. Results showed that students experienced a positive attitude
toward the assessment method, a reduction of test anxiety and an increase in their motivation
for learning.
Keywords Assessment methods . Board game . Collaborative testing . Gamification . High
school physics
Introduction
In recent years, gamification—which refers to the use of game-based elements, such as game
mechanics, esthetics, and game thinking in non-game contexts aimed at engaging people,
* Daniel Dziob
daniel.dziob@uj.edu.pl
1
Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Lojasiewicza 11, 30-348 Krakow, Poland
2
Department of Biophysics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Lazarza 16, 31-530 Krakow,
Poland
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motivating action, enhancing learning, and solving problems—has become increasingly popular (Apostol et al. 2013; Deterding et al. 2011). Admittedly, the idea of introducing games in
teaching is not a new concept. People have been using digital games for learning in formal
environments since the 1960s (Ifenthaler et al. 2012; Moncada and Moncada 2014). However,
the term of gamification was coined only a few years ago, and since then has been gaining
more and more popularity (Dicheva et al. 2015; Sung and Hwang 2013). The benefits of
gamification (or, in more broad terms, game-based learning, e.g., Ifenthaler et al. 2012) in
educational contexts are widely described in the literature. Among them are increasing student
intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy (Banfield and Wilkerson 2014; Seaborn and Fels 2015),
motivation effect and improvement of the learning process (Dicheva et al. 2015; Sadler et al.
2013), as well as improving the positive aspects of competition (Burguillo 2010; Conklin
2006).
Games can reinforce knowledge and bridge the gap between what is learned by creating
dynamic, fun, and exciting learning environments (Royse and Newton 2007). They are a
powerful teaching strategy, and they challenge and motivate students to become more responsible for their own learning (Akl et al. 2013). However, this requires having the game to
be well-designed and structured clearly with a framework that provides effective outcomes
(Allery 2004). The review presented in Dicheva et al. (2015) suggests that early adopters of
gamification are mostly Computer Science/IT educators. This is in line with the rising
popularity of computer games, which have become prominent in the last decade. Nowadays,
many articles can be found, in which using computer games in the teaching process are
introduced and evaluated (Eskelinen 2001; Ko 2002; Rieber and Noah 2008). Nevertheless,
not all of them are proper for school circumstances. Zagal et al. (2006) points out that some of
the designed games are highly opaque and complex in rules, and did not include players
collaborating to play the game: Therefore, these games did not affect students peer-learning.
Through peer collaboration, students build on each other’s knowledge to develop new
attitudes, cognitive skills and psychomotor skills (Adams 2006; Damon and Phelps 1989).
The same authors suggest that for such a purpose board games could be used due to their
transparency regarding the core mechanics. Moreover, board games provide the teachers with
an opportunity to guide or direct children to meet specific educational goals by extending their
learning during and after playing the game (Durden and Dangel 2008; Wasik 2008). Teachers
can also facilitate communication amongst children, build understanding about games, discuss
concepts, and provide feedback to one another (Griffin 2004).
Board games are also successfully used in early childhood education (Ramani and Siegler
2008; Shanklin and Ehlen 2007) as a pedagogical tool that reinforces a positive environment
for learning (Dienes 1963). Games also appear to build positive attitudes (Bragg 2003) and
self-esteem, and enhance motivation (Ernest 1986). They have been found to be also effective
in promoting mathematical learning (Bright et al. 1983), mathematical discussion (Ernest
1986; Oldfield 1991), social interaction (Bragg 2006), and risk taking abilities (Sullivan
1993). Some types of board games were also used in medical education and have been found
as useful methods for conveying information and promoting active learning (Neame and Powis
1981; Richardson and Birge 1995; Saunders and Wallis 1981; Steinman and Blastos 2002). In
the present study, a board game—a competitive game between groups of students in a
classroom—was used as an assessment in order to examine if it could increase high school
students’ achievements and retention of knowledge in physics.
To assess student achievements in general, and as a result of the board game specifically,
there are two main formats of assessment distinguished and widely discussed in the literature,
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namely formative and summative assessment (Harlen and James 1997; Wiliam and Black
1996). In general, formative assessment is carried out throughout a unit (course, project) and
its purpose is to provide feedback to students about the learning process. Summative assessment is given at the end of a unit (course, project) and is used to summarize students’
achievements usually in the form of grades (Harlen and James 1997; Looney 2011; McTighe
and O’Connor 2005). Even though summative assessment could be performed in many ways,
some authors pointed to a lack of post examination feedback for students as a weakness
(Leight et al. 2012; Talanquer et al. 2015). In our study, the board game was used essentially as
a tool for summative assessment, although it also includes some elements of formative
evaluation. Such a combination was dubbed by Wininger (2005) as a formative summative
assessment. It entails reviewing exams with students so that they get feedback about their
knowledge comprehension. One example of this approach is collaborative testing that aims to
give students an opportunity to work in groups during or at the end of an exam (Guest and
Murphy 2000; Lusk and Conklin 2003). Research has shown that there are many benefits to
collaborative testing. These are described in detail by Duane and Satre (2014), Gilley and
Clarkston (2014), Kapitanoff (2009), and based also on literature about the positive impact of
group testing (Millis and Cottell 1998; Michaelson et al. 2002; Hodges 2004) and peerlearning (Slusser and Erickson 2006; Meseke et al. 2008; Ligeikis-Clayton 1996), which are
parts of collaborative learning. Among others, the most important benefits of collaborative
learning are increasing students’ achievements (Bloom 2009; Haberyan and Barnett 2010),
reduction of test anxiety (Zimbardo et al. 2003), improvement of critical thinking ability
(Shindler 2003), and collaboration skills (Lusk and Conklin 2003; Sandahl 2010).
The assessment in the form of a game employed in the current research is based on the
authors’ previous experiences and research (Dziob et al. 2018). It evaluates not only the
content matter knowledge itself, as in typical tests, but combines a few different aspects
together, as schematically shown in Fig. 1. It assesses the relationship between content
knowledge and everyday life, as well as socio-historical context. Moreover, it gives the
opportunity to assess research skills required to conduct experiments. The form of the board
game enables development of social and entrepreneurial skills in the form of a challengeyourself competition, which allows students to surpass individual limitation (Doolittle 1997).
This study reports on the efficacy of assessing students’ knowledge by means of a group
board game approach and measuring its effects on students’ learning outcomes. The research
questions are as follows:
1) What is the effect and influence of the board game assessment on student learning
outcomes when compared with student prior results in physics?
2) What is the effect and influence of the board game assessment on student learning
outcomes when compared with a traditional teaching approach?
Methodology
Participants
The research was conducted on a group of 131 students in total from two high schools in
Poland. Students were divided into experimental (of n = 37 and n = 36 in school 1 and 2,
respectively) and control groups (n = 31 and n = 26). Each group was taught by the same
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Fig. 1 Assessment strategy components. In addition to the content matter knowledge, all other expressed
elements were involved in the assessment process. Own work
teacher and followed the same curriculum during their education. Just before the experiment,
the students had accomplished a 25-h course on vibrations and waves (in school 1) and on
optics (school 2). After finishing the unit, experimental groups took part in the assessment in
the form of a group board game (described below, hereinafter the intervention) and 1 week
after in a traditional test. Students from control groups participated only in the traditional test
the same as experimental group, but without the intervention. In each group, the ratio of males
to females was similar (3:2).
Intervention
The section below contains a detailed description of the intervention: a game which students
from experimental groups played once at the end of the unit together with the evaluation
process. The description includes procedure and examples of questions used in students’
assessment.
Intervention Organization
The game lasted approximately 2.5 lesson hours (approx. 110 min). At the beginning, students
were divided randomly into groups of 4 to 5 people each, and asked to take seats around the
game board table. Each group began with questions concerning some physics phenomena and
students moved their tokens (one per group) forward by the number of right answers or
correctly named concepts. At the end of the game (when allocated time ended), students were
asked to fill in a self- and peer-assessment questionnaire. At each stage of the game after
students had attempted, a scientifically accepted answer to each question was provided
together with a proper explanation by students or, if needed (when students didn’t pass), by
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the teacher. Thus, this approach allows the teacher to immediately rectify and clarify students’
misconceptions.
Game Board—Organization
The game board consisted of a circular path, and the participants moved their group token
along this path. The path was made up of a random assortment of five potential categories, or
activities, to land on. These included physics phenomena charades, famous people, short
answer questions, multiple-choice questions, and simple experiments. All questions required
the students to perform different types of activities and allow them to obtain a different number
of points. Because the number of points obtained at each stage was identical with number of
spots the token was moved, the scoring system was identical with the movement system as in
typical board game. Additionally, there were also two special lines on the board. Whenever
any group reached one of them, the members of both groups received special algebraic tasks or
complex experimental tasks to solve. Figure 2 presents the game board with the fields of
different type indicated on it.
Physics Phenomena Charades
Upon reaching this field, one representative of a given group received six cards with names of
various physics phenomena related to waves and vibrations (school 1) or optics (school 2; see Fig.
3). Their aim was to describe each concept, without using the words given, so that the rest of the
team could guess the name. The time for this task was limited to 1 min (measured by a small
Fig. 2 The design of the board game
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hourglass). After the end of the round, tokens were moved forward by the number of fields equal
to the number of correctly guessed charades.
Famous People Charades
These questions were similar to the previous ones, but they related to important people
connected with the concepts of waves, vibrations, and acoustics (physicists, musicians, etc.)
or optics (Fig. 4). The scoring system was identical to the one employed in the physics
phenomena charades.
Short Answer Questions
The short answer questions differed with respect to their level of difficulty, but usually they required
only a true/false answer (see Fig. 5). The questions were asked by the teacher and the time of each
group’s round was 1 min. Within that time, all members of the currently active group could answer
as many questions in a row as they managed, without passing their turn to another group. If the
provided answer was wrong, the next group took over and had an opportunity to answer other
questions. At the end of each round, the groups moved their token forward by the number of the
correctly answered questions divided by 2 and rounded up.
Multiple-Choice Questions
Upon reaching a field of this category, a group received multiple-choice questions related to
scientific reasoning (Fig. 6). Students had to point out the correct answer and provide comprehensive
argumentation for their choice. By providing the right answer together with the correct explanation,
students could move forward by 2 fields on the board. Otherwise, no move was allowed.
Simple Experiments
Upon reaching a field of this category, the students had to conduct some simple experiments in
order to prove relevant phenomena (Fig. 7). The equipment necessary for each experiment,
with some extra materials among them, were available to students. An important part of the
task was the necessity to make a decision which objects were essential. The other groups
taking part in the game were enabled to ask the currently active team detailed questions about
the conducted experiment and ask for additional explanations. Having carried out the experiment and addressed the questions properly, the group was allowed to move forward by 2
fields.
Fig. 3 Examples of physics phenomena charades
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Fig. 4 Examples of famous people charades from games on waves and vibrations and optics
Algebra Tasks
When one of the groups reached the first special line on the game board after the end of the
round, all competing groups simultaneously received three algebra tasks. They had 10 min to
solve them. For accomplishing this task, each group could receive a maximum of 4 points and
moved their token forward by 4 fields. Incorrect or incomplete solutions, assessed by the
teacher, reduce the amount of points.
Experimental Task
When one of the groups reached the second special line on the board at the end of the round,
all competing groups simultaneously received one experimental task, which was neither
discussed nor solved during any previous class. The students had to come up with an
experimental design to examine the effect of damping the movement of the harmonic oscillator
(school 1) or examine the surrounding medium refractive index on the glass lens focal length
(school 2). The groups received special worksheets prepared in accordance with an inquirybased methodology. Students had to formulate a proper hypothesis, describe the plan of the
experiment, draw the experimental setup, write down their observations, analyze the results,
and draw the conclusions. This part took up to 20 minutes. For this task, students could receive
a maximum of 10 points.
Instruments and Data Collection
Former Achievements
Before the intervention, students from each group were tested individually in four tests throughout
the school year; on kinematics, energy, gravitation, and rigid body rotational motion (school 1);
Fig. 5 Examples of short answer questions
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Fig. 6 Examples of short answer questions
and electrostatics, current, magnetic field, and induction (school 2). They comprised mixed
problems: content knowledge and scientific reasoning tasks, multiple-choice, open-response,
and algebra problems. Tests were the same for experimental and control groups. The average of
each student’s percentage results on the four tests was used to measure his/her achievement prior
to the game, henceforth called average former achievements and denoted as FA.
Assessment Questionnaires
When the game ended, each student was asked to fill in individually two questionnaires of selfand peer-assessment in order to evaluate themselves and other fellow players from the same
group under various sides. Each questionnaire was composed of eight questions designed on a
6-point Likert scale. Half of the questions focused on the students’ communication skills,
while the rest on subject matter contribution. In Table 1, the self-assessment questionnaire is
presented. The peer-assessment questions were designed in the similar way.
Evaluation Process
The questionnaire-based assessment results were included in the final score according to the
author’s own approach presented below and described in detail in Dziob et al. (2018).
Fig. 7 Examples of simple experiments tasks
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Table 1 Student self-assessment questionnaire
Question
1–6 scale
Were you involved in the group work?
Did you communicate adequately with the group?
Did you take part in the discussion on the problem?
Did you take into account the opinion of other students?
Did you prepare for the test beforehand?
Did you participate in solving problems and tasks?
Did you have sufficient knowledge to solve the issues?
Did you contribute to the final result of the group?
Communication skills
Subject matter contribution
1. The mean average score was calculated based on the Bsubject matter contribution^ and,
separately, Bcommunication skills^ points in the self-assessment results (S).
2. The average score was calculated based on the Bsubject matter contribution^ and,
separately, the Bcommunication skills^ points ascribed to the student by the other members of the group (the peer-assessment, P).
3. At the end, the Bsubject matter contribution^ and Bcommunication skills^ scores were
obtained separately as follows:
1. If |S − P| ≤ 1 (a consistent evaluation): take P as the final score
2. if not (an inconsistent evaluation): take P − 0.5 as the final score
The percentage score for each team was calculated by dividing the number of points
(number of fields) accumulated by the group by the maximum number of points available to
obtain. The final overall score given to each student consisted of three parts:
1. the group common percentage result from the board game—with the weight of 0.5,
2. the questionnaire-based assessment percentage result for the Bsubject matter
contribution^—with the weight of 0.3,
3. the questionnaire-based assessment percentage result for the Bcommunication skills^—
with the weight of 0.2.
The final score for each student after the game, calculated according to the algorithm above
and expressed in a percentage form, is henceforth referred to as game score (GS).
Post-test
An unannounced post-test was conducted in the experimental groups 1 week after the game.
The same test was given to students from the control groups, just after finishing the unit. It was
prepared in a traditional written form. There was neither a review of the relevant content
knowledge during regular classes nor a post-game discussion of the game problems and results
before this test. The post-test (PT) score is expressed in percentage terms.
Students’ Opinions Questionnaire
Students from the experimental groups received an anonymous short evaluation questionnaire
a week after the game (just after the post-test). It consisted of six questions asking BHow the
knowledge assessment method influences your…^, and each answered on a linear point scale
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ranging from −5 to +5, with the numbers indicating the most negative (−5), through none (0) to
the most positive (+5) impact. The evaluated aspects covered pre-test preparation, engagement
in team work, answer difficulty, test anxiety, final acquisition of knowledge, and motivation for
future learning. It was also a space for students to present opinions on the game. Exact
questions are presented in the results section together with students’ answers.
Data Analysis
Basic Statistical Analysis
Below, a statistical analysis of the data is carried out, firstly for the experimental groups, and
then in comparison with the control groups. In Table 2, we present basic descriptive statistics
and empirical distributions (in the form of histograms, with normality tested by the ShapiroWilk tests) for each set of results, i.e., the FA, GS, and PT, for both experimental groups. The
numbers 1 and 2 in superscripts indicate the schools.
All examined variables have normal distribution. Student t test showed that the differences
among each variable means are statistically significant (in each case p value < 0.05). This
allowed for comparison of the students’ results in different tests. On average, the students from
experimental groups scored 47%/59% (school 1/school 2) in the former test, 70%/80% in the
game, and 58%/68% in post-test. An increase of almost 23 percentage points (pp.) between FA
and GS in both experimental groups might emerge as the result of student cooperation during
the game. The PT results are lower than GS. However, they are still statistically significantly
higher than the FA results (p < 0.05), which may suggest a positive impact of game-based
assessment on students’ achievements. It should be noticed, however, that at each stage the
results of students from the first school are lower than those from the second. This is consistent
with the author’s observation about the educational standards in each school. Therefore, in
what follows, both groups will be analyzed independently, in comparison to adequate control
groups from the same schools.
In both schools, control groups were formed from the students who studied with the same
teacher and who completed the same courses. In Tables 3 and 4, basic descriptive statistics for
control and experimental groups former achievements (FA) and results in post-test (PT) are
presented. In each school, average former achievements of the students from both the
Table 2 Basic statistics of the results obtained by students from experimental groups
Variable
FA1 [%]
GS1 [%]
PT1 [%]
FA2 [%]
GS2 [%]
PT2 [%]
Characteristics
Mean
95% Confidence
interval for mean
Median
Lower
quartile
Upper
quartile
Standard
deviation
47.05
69.74
58.44
58.58
80.01
67.76
(44.38; 49.72)
(66.46; 73.03)
(54.29; 62.56)
(53.07; 64.07)
(76.27; 83.76)
(62.56; 72.97)
45.41
69.71
57.58
55.37
79.81
68.36
40.31
64.58
48.48
46.68
71.56
56.78
54.67
77.47
69.70
68.54
87.84
76.82
8.00
9.86
12.44
16.25
11.07
15.38
Superscripts indicate the schools
FA average former achievements, GS the final score in the game, PT the result in the post-game test
School 1
School 2
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experimental and the control group are similar. As proved by the t test (each data are normally
distributed), there are no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05) between FA in experimental and control group within one school.
The former achievements and post-test results within the control groups were tested in the
same way. Results indicate (p > 0.05) that there is no statistically significant difference between
former achievements (FAC) and post-test results (PTC) in control groups. It implies that the
post-test can be considered as a reliable tool, neither harder nor simpler than the former test. It
allows the comparison of the PT results between experimental and control group. In school 1,
the difference between mean results is close to 8 pp. (p = 0.0000), and in school 2, it is a little
bit above 10 pp. (p = 0.0003). It clearly shows that experimental groups obtained statistically
higher results in PT than their colleagues from the control groups. In other words, students
from the experimental groups gained significantly more knowledge than their colleagues from
the control groups.
Students’ Opinions
Students’ opinions about the board game were collected just after the post-test, but before
providing them with the information about their final marks. Participants filled in a questionnaire (on −5 to +5 scale, where 0 means no impact) and expressed their comments anonymously in an open, descriptive form. Mean results for the questionnaire questions in both
schools are provided in Table 5.
Because the answers for each were normally distributed (tested by Shapiro-Wilk test), the
comparisons of the H0: mean against zero was calculated using the Student t test. The test showed
(p < 0.05) that in each question students’ answers differ significantly (were higher or lower) than
B0^ value, which means no impact. In other words, for each question, students state significant
influence of the board game on the tested issue. Students in both schools judged the assessment in
the form of a group board game beneficial for their preparation, and pre-test preparation was
marked by students from each school as positive. This means that students would spend more time
preparing for the game, as opposed to spending time on preparation for a traditional test. Both
experimental groups agreed that the level of engagement of their team-mates was high and that
answering questions was easier than in traditional, individually taken tests. It corresponds with the
students’ opinions that this new form of assessment prompts them to give answers, even if they
feel uncertain about their correctness. Anxiety during the test was assessed at − 3.1 and − 2.3 in
both experimental groups, respectively, which means that this form of assessment reduces the
Table 3 Basic statistics of the students from the first school
Variable
FA1 [%]
FA1C [%]
PT1 [%]
PT1C [%]
Characteristics
Mean
95% Confidence
interval for mean
Median
Lower
quartile
Upper
quartile
Standard
deviation
t test
47.05
49.43
58.44
50.67
(44.38; 49.72)
(45.31; 53.55)
(54.29; 62.56)
(46.43; 54.92)
45.41
48.28
57.58
49.34
40.31
42.07
48.48
41.03
54.67
58.12
69.70
61.03
8.00
11.23
12.44
11.57
p = 0.3120
Superscripts differentiate experimental (1 ) and control group (1C ) within first school
FA average former achievements, PT the result in the post-game test
p = 0.0000
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Table 4 Basic statistics of the students from the second school
Variable
FA2 [%]
FA2C [%]
PT2 [%]
PT2C [%]
Characteristics
Mean
95% Confidence
interval for mean
Median
Lower
quartile
Upper
quartile
Standard
deviation
t test
58.58
56.81
67.76
57.65
(53.07; 64.07)
(51.21; 62.41)
(62.56; 72.97)
(51.43; 63.87)
55.37
56.49
68.36
58.52
46.68
51.78
56.78
44.04
68.54
64.11
76.82
65.76
16.25
14.16
15.38
15.72
p = 0.6539
p = 0.0003
Superscripts differentiate experimental (2 ) and control group (2C ) within second school
FA average former achievements, PT the result in the post-game test
anxiety normally associated with traditional exams. Students also indicated, both in the questionnaires and open opinions, that the board game improved their final level of knowledge. Students
also felt motivated by the game to continue learning.
A few examples of the opinions are presented below:
&
Student A:
This is a good option to test for people who are weaker in calculation. Not everyone is able
to solve a complex task, but anyone can learn theory.
&
Student E:
This form of the test was very good, because you could learn also during the test. It teaches
cooperation in the way you could have fun.
&
Student K:
I think that we learned and invented more during this game than during a written test. It
was a very good possibility for integration.
&
Student O:
Each group should get all kinds of questions. Then it would be more fair. Questions should
be more focused on physics, without connections to history.
Table 5 Mean results for each question in the questionnaire for both experimental groups
How the form of the assessment influences your
School 1
School 2
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
3.2 (1.1)
3.6 (0.9)
2.9 (1.8)
− 3.1 (1.6)
2.4 (1.8)
3.5 (0.9)
2.8 (1.6)
3.7 (0.8)
3.4 (1.2)
− 2.3 (2.1)
3.9 (1.2)
3.4 (1.7)
Pre-test preparation
Engagement into team work
Easy of answering
Test anxiety
Final acquire of knowledge
Motivation for future learning
Numbers in brackets denote standard deviations
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The vast majority of students’ opinions were positive and enthusiastic. A few of them used
the feedback to provide helpful and insightful comments for improving the assessment. In the
discussion section, we relate them to the findings commonly presented in the literature on
collaborative testing and gamification.
Discussion
The main purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of assessing students’
achievements in the form of a group board game in comparison to their former achievements
and traditional tests. The first important finding is a statistically significant increase in students’
achievements in the game in comparison to their former achievements. This result is consistent
with research on the positive impact of collaborative testing, which shows that students’ results
obtained in collaborative taken exams are higher than in individual ones (Bloom 2009;
Haberyan and Barnett 2010; Kapitanoff 2009; Lusk and Conklin 2003). Some authors
controvert, however, the ability of collaborative testing to improve content retention (Leight
et al. 2012; Woody et al. 2008), pointing out that only their performance during the collaborative exam is higher. Our second results addressed this problem. We found that students from
experimental groups gained higher results in the post-test taken 1 week after the game with
respect to the results obtained by the control groups. In other words, the students assessed by
the game obtained not only high performance in the game but also in a knowledge test taken
after the game. This finding is encouraging with respect to other research that shows improvement in students’ achievement after the collaborative exam in the long run (Cortright et al.
2003; Jensen et al. 2002; Simpkin 2005). The results show also that the assessment method is
efficient independently of the level of students’ performance.
The students’ opinions were encouraging and supported findings in the literature. Board
games can be perceived as a form of activity in which group work skills are exploited and
play an essential role in accomplishing tasks (Dallmer 2004; Kapitanoff 2009; Lusk and
Conklin 2003; Sandahl 2010; Seaborn and Fels 2015; Shindler 2003). Some researchers
(Dicheva et al. 2015; Sadler et al. 2013) suggested that gamification could improve the
learning process, which can be inferred from the increase in students’ results in post-test. By
playing the game, the students learn to listen to everybody else’s answers, provide fellow
players with their know-how, and respond to ideas proposed in discussions. According to
Hanus and Fox (2015) and Jolliffe (2007), the above can stimulate knowledge assimilation.
In the students’ opinions expressed in the questionnaire and open-descriptive form, the
board game assessment has a positive impact on their motivation and social interactions,
which also corresponds to the literature findings (Banfield and Wilkerson 2014; Bragg
2006; Seaborn and Fels 2015). Furthermore, the assessment in the form of a game induces
far less test anxiety by giving students a sense of being supported by the other team
members (Banfield and Wilkerson 2014; Kapitanoff 2009; Lusk and Conklin 2003;
Sandahl 2010; Zimbardo et al. 2003). Similar results can be found in other research, in
which results from student’s attitude surveys confirm that collaborative testers have more
positive attitudes towards the testing process in general compared to students who take
assessments individually (Bovee and Gran 2005; Giuliodori et al. 2008; Meseke et al.
2009). Finally, an active involvement in the self- and peer-assessment process may increase
the students’ self-assurance and adequate self-esteem (Hendrix 1996), thereby enhancing
retention of knowledge (Sawtelle et al. 2012).
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Comments on Organization of the Game
Preparation of the board game has a few important aspects, which should be described in order
to give the reader the impression of how to adapt the idea to her/his own purpose. The most
important is to decide on the topic, which should give considerable benefits for assessing
knowledge in a non-standard form. A board game has to have clear rules, provide a sufficient
rationale for collaboration, be a challenge for participants, and provide different types of
activities and experiences. It is connected with the next important step, which is to precisely
define the goals of the event, regarding prepared tasks. Chosen activities should allow
assessment not only the content knowledge but also all other aspects (e.g., Science as a
Human Endeavor and Science Inquiry Skills) chosen by the teacher. Breedlove et al. (2004)
reported that the effects of collaborative testing were directly related to the level of cognitive
processing required by the test questions. The activities, rules, and scoring system should be
modified and matched to the groups. Particularly, in our research, one student claimed that
there was a possibility to guess the proper word in the charades without physics knowledge.
This can be improved by additional rules or modifying the charades questions with other types
of activities. Because the effectiveness of the collaborative testing may depend on students
earlier teaching strategies and improve over time as students become more familiar with the
collaborative process (Castor 2004), the modification of the game seems to be natural
consequence.
Further Issues
The study examined only the short-term effect on students’ retention knowledge. One can
suppose that because the initial level of the forgetting curve was higher in experimental groups
than in control groups, after a few months, experimental groups should also obtain better
results. This assumption has to be, however, tested in future work. The method could be also
implemented and verified in subjects other than physics as well as in a wider spectrum of
school levels. Even though literature findings about collaborative testing and board games in
many science subjects are very enthusiastic, only few of them focus on the distinction between
high- and low-performing students (Giuliodori et al. 2008). This question should be also
examined in future work.
Another issue is the claim that a teacher could influence the results, e.g., by focusing on the
experimental group or neglecting control groups. In our research, control group results in the
post-test were similar to their results in all other tests taken before, taken in average as former
achievements. This approach, unlike the typical pre-test, allows us to address this remark.
Comparison between pre- and post-test provides clear information about students gain in the
examination topic, but can be easily influenced by the teacher, which will be found only in the
lower achievements for the control group. In our approach, we assumed that an uninfluenced
teaching style will have an effect in unchanged students’ results in the post-test, which is
assumed to be allowed. However, the implementation of the method under different circumstances could also provide worth worthwhile information.
Future research could also examine collaborative testing as a more effective standard
assessment strategy across a curriculum (Meseke 2010). Because the game always has to be
a challenge for students, some modifications should be introduced in the type of questions
and rules or the board game should be used interchangeably with another collaborative
method.
Res Sci Educ (2020) 50:845–862
859
Concluding Remarks
This paper studied the influence of a board game as an assessment method on high school
students’ achievement. Students from experimental groups performed better in the game than
in the former tests. Simultaneously their achievement in a traditional test taken 1 week after
was significantly higher than for students from control groups. It implies that assessing
students’ achievement in the form of a game may improve their performance and short-term
achievements.
The improvement of students’ achievements may result in combining collaborative testing
with gamification. Apart from quantitative results, the students’ enthusiastic opinions are also
indicative of the social benefits of the approach, such as the development of group work skills,
supporting weaker students through collaboration with others, and, in addition to these,
integration of the class. It appears that game-based assessment enhances students’ retention
of knowledge and provides opportunities for improvement for each student, regardless of their
former performance. Moreover, it helps to improve students’ attitudes towards their learning
and add valuable collaborative learning experience to enhance the school curriculum.
The approach can be easily modified and adapted as a testing method in fields other that
physics, especially natural sciences, in which assessing the experimental skills and sociohistorical context are also under consideration.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a
link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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